4 Common Fitness Goals & Strategies for Achieving Each

4 Common Fitness Goals & Strategies for Achieving Each

One of the best decisions you can make for self-improvement is to improve your fitness level. Whether you want to shed some pounds, improve your endurance and energy levels, or build more muscle, you must have a target in mind and devise a strategy to achieve it. 

Individuals vary from one another in terms of their lifestyle, their bodies, and the way they operate. The key is to understand how your body functions so you can set realistic fitness goals and achieve your core objective, be it weight loss, gaining muscle mass, etc. 

So here’s to becoming a better version of yourself with these four common fitness goals and learning how to achieve them. 

1. Improve Endurance

Do you feel tired or winded after walking or taking a flight of stairs? If the answer is yes, your endurance level is low, and one fitness goal you can set for yourself is to work on your endurance and improve it over the coming months.

Endurance is your body’s physical ability to sustain exercise for a prolonged period and is categorized as muscular and cardiovascular endurance. Muscular endurance refers to the muscle’s ability to work without tiring out, while cardiovascular endurance is the lung’s and heart’s capability to provide the body with oxygen. To improve your endurance levels, exercise twenty to thirty minutes daily or at least 150 minutes a week and incorporate high-intensity interval training and other exercises like skipping or aerobics to increase the heart rate.

Remember, it will not happen overnight, and you will need to slowly but consistently work towards increasing your endurance. 

2. Clean Your Diet

The role of diet in reducing weight or becoming fit cannot be stressed enough. Regardless of how active you are or how consistently you exercise, your efforts will only yield results once you shift to a clean diet. A balanced diet that includes all the food groups in their requisite proportion will give your body the fuel to function, help you overcome unhealthy cravings, and facilitate building more muscles. 

Firstly, you must review your current diet and eating habits and make changes where required. From making meal plans to eating proper meals at the right time of the day, you must make active efforts to change your routine and improve. At the same time, you must focus on your food portions and monitor your calorie intake for weight loss. Your daily meals must include plenty of vegetables, healthy carbs and fats, fruits, fibre, and protein, and everything must be taken in controlled portions for effective weight loss.

Start with making a meal plan for the week. You can then list down and purchase your groceries, prepare meals over the weekend, and store them in separate containers so they last you for the week, and you can repeat the cycle.

3. Increase Your Daily Steps

Most individuals take around 3,000 to 4,000 steps daily, which is common if you have a desk job. A sedentary lifestyle, where you spend most parts of the day sitting behind a desk or on the couch, can be a precursor to various health issues, including low stamina and endurance and weight gain over time. Health experts suggest that you should aim for an average of 10,000 steps daily to improve your muscle strength, flexibility, immune function, and blood flow. It will also lift your mood and improve your sleep quality.

Increasing your daily steps to 10,000 if you have been doing only 3 to 4k in the past can be challenging, so go easy on yourself. Start with small changes in your routine, like walking to work or the nearby grocery store. Take the stairs instead of the lift and go to the beach or a local park on weekends to spend your time walking around. Keep a pair of sneakers in your office to squeeze in a brief walk when possible. Also, remember to track and record your daily steps through an app to monitor your progress. 

4. Increase Your Water Intake

Adequate water intake is important for your fitness journey as it prevents dehydration when you sweat out from exercising and keeps you energized and focused. Water can also help suppress cravings and curb unhealthy eating habits.

While the amount of water you consume depends on your weight, how active you are, and the climate where you live, you must drink at least two litres of water daily. Drink a glass of water before meals, and remember to drink during the day. Keep a large labelled bottle to monitor your intake to achieve this goal. 

Final Thoughts

The journey to becoming fit and healthier requires consistency in taking small steps that result in small changes over time. The fitness goals mentioned in this article are intended to help you become more active and adopt a cleaner lifestyle through proper diet and hydration. Fitness is not only dependent on how much you move. Change must happen from within, for which you must also focus on what you eat and drink and how it can support your exercise routine. Setting these goals over time is more likely to help you succeed than setting extreme short-term fitness goals.